Much like 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Carson Wentz’s top receiving threat at the Philadelphia Eagles happens to be a tight end. But while the previous two Thursday received great news with the announcement of George Kittle’s and Travis Kelce’s respective contract extensions, the future outlook of the latter became even darker than it was before.
At this point it is heel difficult to see how Wentz will have Zach Ertz to move on to this coming season. And even if he does, that probably means the Eagles will be competing first.
Kittle and Kelce are without a doubt the two premier class thin ends in the league – in that order – and they are now being paid with the two highest annual salaries ever at the position. There’s a shortlist of players in talks for the next-best tight end in the NFL, and Ertz is on it.
Like Kittle and Kelce before signing their extensions, Ertz is under contract over the next season. And just as Kittle and Kelce were right, he was expected to seek an increase commensurate with his production.
However, that is not likely to come from Philadelphia. The Eagles were already in hell with a salary cap next season, and that was before Kittle and Kelce removed the previous tight end market.
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The Eagles are currently projected to have more than $ 262 million in caps for next season. Last month, the NFL and the NFL Players Association agreed that the 2021 salary cap would not drop below $ 175 million due to the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. But despite the 2021 cap declining or remaining flat at $ 198 million, Philadelphia will have to cut costs to a significant extent.
Although Ertz hit a $ 12.4 million cap in 2021 in the final season of his current contract, he already looks like one of the most likely candidates to be cut by the Eagles, as doing so would cost an extra $ 4.7 million to cap space. Not to mention, they already have a younger, cheaper and argument better close end in Dallas Goedert that makes Ertz somewhat fired.
Assuming the Eagles actually sign Ertz on an extension, that would likely increase their commitments for the 2021 cap en deprive them of their ability to create immediate living space by cutting it. They will already have to share ways with some of the best players on their roster, and signing Ertz on the kind of deal he is looking for would further expand their depth.
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Now, the Eagles were able to definitively reduce their 2021 cap commitments with some creative maneuvering. Look no further than the Chiefs, who managed to sign Mahomes, Kelce and star defensive tackle Chris Jones to humongous contract extensions this offseason despite with exactly $ 171 in total cap space on March 30th. That said, Kansas City was nowhere near the kind of 2021 cap problem that Philadelphia already finds itself in, and no matter how easy the Eagles get, it will not change the reality of the situation.
That reality seems to be very dark, whether they like Ertz or not.
